Call of the future

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April Walker, Southern Cross: We are at one of the early stages
of considering our strategic direction in telecommunications
technology for voice over IP. Were in the process of looking
at what weve got, where we might be going in the future, and
what were likely to need. Obviously VOIP has cropped up as a
potential direction for us so its something that were
looking at and considering. Previously one of our call centres was
operating on VOIP technology but we disestablished it. We moved the
call centre. We merged it back into the main call centre.

Catherine Rusby, IAG: Im just reviewing the final paper
thats going to be submitted to our board in a couple of weeks
to say, You wont hear from us again because were
done [with our project].

VOIP is a very small component of a converged environment and in
fact delivers very little on its own. Weve gone the whole hog
and were loving it. The business is getting tremendous
benefits from it.

Steve Mayo-Smith, Auckland District Health Board: Weve
just gone through a whole massive reorganisation process where
weve consolidated a lot of hospitals. From an IT perspective,
weve gone from being very paper centric to more electronic.
Interestingly in all of that, when you talk to the clinicians as to
what is the critical system they cannot live without, its the
PABX. We run two PABXs on our sites. Therefore, as we move forward,
the issue is that theres a DHB [district health board] with
significant deficit as we renovate some of the other sites. I
dont want to go and spend another million dollars on
upgrading PABXs, so therefore where does voice over IP fit?

Warwick Wright, New Zealand Racing Board: We have a big plan to
migrate our data network. Weve got 600¿retail outlets
around the country so we are planning to migrate that to IP in
2005. We have four call centres, we used to have five. Were
doing a large number of reviews on options for the call centres and
that includes rationalisation, consolidation, outsourcing and a lot
of that will drive what we do with the technology.

One scenario I can see is that we end up with two roughly
balanced call centres with a big fat pipe in between them and voice
over IP connections. Were heavily dependent at the moment on
the Telecom 0800 network, and its not a simple matter of
moving off that. It does some things for us that are very hard to
replicate with any other mechanism. I think theres a lot of
potential with voice over IP for us but not in the short-term.

Vaughn Bosher, SkyCity: Were doing an implementation in
Adelaide at the moment, and were starting an implementation
here in Auckland for the new Grand Hotel that Sky City is building
across the road.

This is a two-pronged attack. One, doing it small at each
location and then downstream, a consolidated effect potentially
looking at things like call centre consolidation, with sites in
Hamilton and Queenstown, and smaller sites around Auckland with
five or six different buildings. So [were taking] small
steps, but looking towards the big picture downstream of a
consolidated voice over IP network.

Liz Gosling, AUT: We have been running a pilot for about a
year-and a-half-now, with 86¿voice over IP phones within the
university. Weve reached a stage where we are looking at our
options for moving forward. We have a number of things driving
that. We have two main new buildings in AUT coming on stream by
about 2007, and the effect of that on our user base will be a huge
amount of smooth outs and changes across a period of time.

The cost of doing those smooth outs and changes on our existing
PABX could be quite significant. If we used voice over IP, then we
would be looking at some reduced costs in that area.

Weve got five main buildings in the city centre, in the
CBD, plus campuses at Te¿Wananga and Technology Park in
Penrose, plus some further satellite buildings. The convergence is
very attractive to us in that it allows us a lot of flexibility as
AUT expands.

A strong business case
Catherine Rusby: We started out with business requirements, and
then did a strategy based on our telecommunications because it was
kind of out there. IT was fine, but we just really didnt know
what to do with the telecommunications aspect. So we put together a
strategy that really aligned with our business direction and really
clearly identified that convergence was going to deliver an awful
lot of flexibility, operational cost savings. At this point the
risk had subsided from this leading edge environment, and this fear
of providers - there are only Telecom and TelstraClear.

We have re-cabled everything, we have ripped out all of the old
and replaced it with a converged data voice network, which then
forms the basis of the ability, and really fairly simplistic
ability, to do that integration. No longer is infrastructure going
to be the barrier to that.

Our business drivers were definitely about cost, particularly
after wed integrated, we had two companies brought together
[IAG and NZI]. The benefits that we have achieved almost
instantaneously have been in the order of 25 per cent. Also, we
really needed the flexibility from our business of being able to
re-deploy people anywhere in the country because of floods or
insurance claims.

For example, I too came up from Wellington today. I come into my
office here, or to any office and log on with my extension number
in Wellington. It transports all that intelligence about my line-up
to that physical unit on whatever desk Im sitting on. That
will happen for me anywhere in the country, at any one of our
sites. For our mobile workers or home workers, we are establishing
a capability of a little Cisco modem that you can run across
broadband that can link them into our IP network and with a little
basic IP phone as if theyre on another part of the network
anywhere else.

We went for a fairly vanilla implementation to start with so
that we will now look to build and leverage the investment even
more, but our business case did not even try to quantify any of the
flexibility, the productivity benefits, any of those
intangibles.

We didnt even attempt it because the business case stood
on its own two feet on the 25 per cent benefits of cost savings. It
was almost to the point where it was self-funding. Had we not had
to extend over a period of time due to other business constraints,
we probably could have self-funded the project or pretty close to
it.

Pilot experiences
Liz Gosling: We had some obviously initial challenges as you do
with a pilot, but generally it was very successful, very well
accepted. It gave us some good insights into some of the areas,
specifically in user training, that we would need to focus more
clearly on.

AUT is a very new university. We got university status in the
year 2000. Most university CEOs have an enormous challenge in that
they work in a very, very un-centralised environment where networks
have been built up over the years, which are owned by faculties.
There is generally no centralised IT support structure. There might
be five or six help desks across a university. AUT has been very
fortunate in that we have a very centralised system. Weve had
a lot of support from the vice chancellor to actually put that in,
so it makes it much easier for us to leverage and put in this kind
of investments. We also have a very up to-date-network.

Vaughn Bosher: We had a good business driver where the business
centre wanted an up-to-date business class hotel. But to have a
five star rating, they [Qualmark, New Zealand tourisms
official mark of quality] specifically provide you with a list of
criteria that you need to make the team. Some of the technologies
that you need to have in place to enable you to get that sort of
rating, lend themselves quite nicely into voice over IP. That was
an ideal opportunity for us to start with voice over IP.

It wont be everywhere and it wont be all.
Theres still a place for an analogue phone. When youre
talking about being stuck in a hallway or in a lift, well, you
dont really want nice high-tech technology. Its not
just the CEOs phone on his desk, its the one
thats stuck in the fire escape and in the lift well.
Youve got to have those. So there is a place for the whole
breadth of technology.

Quality issues Liz Gosling: Our experience has been its
very acceptable. Its as good as the conventional analogues
around.

Catherine Rusby: For us, there were never any quality issues.
Where we had issues were echoes... We definitely were suffering for
a couple of months, until we got rid of it all. In the call centres
it was mainly because of our headsets and the incompatibility. Once
that was identified, that was sorted. Weve had no issues
since. The quality is fantastic. One of the big barriers for us
going integrated convergence network throughout the business was
the call centres.

The perceptions were that the call centres are incredibly
important, which they are, that you cant have any stuffing
around with the voice applications or voice systems. [But] Of all
of the people that call me everyday and say thank you, thank you,
thank you, it is the call centres.

A great example is we did a crisis simulation recently. We were
at 151¿Queen Street [Auckland], which is our head office,
and across the road at Shortland Street is where one of our main
call centres is located. We all arrived, the executive team
arrived, in the CEOs office at 7.55 to hear that a bomb had
gone off at Shortland Street and had blown up one of our floors.
Aside from all the people issues, we had to do disaster recovery
and where do we move people to. We were sitting around thinking,
can we move them out to the Takapuna call centre? No, its way
too small, and we hadnt updated our business continuity plans
to reflect the new environment.

We suddenly went, Hang on, all we need to do is send all
those head office people home. Tell all the people from the call
centres to go over to 151¿Queen Street, log onto any phone
which has PCs, its all there. Theyre there
because the system knows. Once they know your DDI and they know
where you are physically located, it automatically knows your skill
sets, what call centre youre in, and it will re-route to you
directly. That just alleviated so much issue for us with having to
call Telecom to have call routing changed, etc. It did our heads in
how easy that was. It was so simple. Its fantastic.

Vaughn Bosher: Weve found it very good. Weve got a
small pilot running between Auckland and Queenstown and its
better than the cellular network. [You] pick up the phone, ring it.
Its fine. It looks and sounds like youre next door.

Warwick Wright: We dont have issues but I guess weve
got concerns that its more open to negative influence than
the traditional telephony. I think you probably need to be smarter
and more focused on how youre managing your circuits if
youre going to put voice across them... Im talking more
hypothetically than practical experience.

Our view is that if we are sharing the same pipe with voice and
data, then theres the opportunity to make some configuration
changes on that pipe and affect data. You need a higher skill level
and greater focus on the management of your network if youre
going to put voice across it. Its easier to get it wrong.

Redundancy
Catherine Rusby: The big thing about IP is were not talking
about redundancy any more, which is built-in duplication, and
duplication of costs, just in case. We built a tonne of resiliency
into the network so any issues that have happened, and they do,
its just re-routed itself and found a new way to get
there.

Steve Mayo-Smith: I have no redundancy or DR [disaster recovery]
if a PABX goes out. Its a key issue for us. Weve got
two PABXs we can re-route and so on and so forth, but we dont
have the ability like you were just talking about in terms of,
Whoops, that floors been taken out, move the people
over there.

Catherine Rusby: So aside from a physical outage like that
building weve had, and that was only simulated, any outages
that weve had have been totally transparent to the business.
Its almost like a mirror network, it just resets itself.
Its got several paths it can go through so when one breaks,
it goes and finds its way to the other one. Weve had to do
that a couple of times up here in Auckland and its just
re-routed from our call centre from its normal path over to the
Albany data centre and comes through there instead. Absolutely
transparent. Business isnt even aware of it.

Well, weve integrated our mobile phone fleet with the
network so I can ring up - and I dont think thats
necessarily new technology - you can do that in old environments.
With a simple code in front, if Im on a mobile calling a
landline, I just put a two nine, which is what it is, and then the
extension number and it goes directly to that internal number and
vice versa. If Im on a landline wanting to call a mobile
internally, and thats all considered on our network, I
dont get any additional charge for this. So theres
another cost saving.

There must be a tonne of things with your 0800 that are
connected to the services, but we took all our 0800 numbers with
us. All our DDIs, we did make the hard call to move numbers, but
were very happy that we have and its been fairly
painless. You know you just get a redirect for a little while. Our
0800 migration was a fantastic thing because it routed out probably
25 per cent of the 0800 numbers that we had that we were never
using, and the costs that we were paying for that.

Warwick Wright: Our business has got some very strange profiles.
For example, people betting on races want to bet right up to the
last minute. Weve analysed our traffic pattern and we only
use, on average, 30¿ports. But one minute before race close
or finish of race close we need 300¿ports and even
thats probably not enough.

So traffic management has been quite a problem for telcos with
us because it doesnt conform to any normal pattern of usage.
Its very, very spiky, and what we do with our call centres
with the 0800 system, is we use the intelligence of the network.
When a person calls, say they call the Auckland call centre, they
call the 0800 number and it goes to the Auckland call centre and
Auckland is all busy, it says, Ill bounce this off to,
20 per cent of the calls will go to Wellington, Palmerston
North. So its more a load balancing mechanism now.

Vendor management Catherine Rusby: One of the things we did when
we were in our RFP process was we didnt do the big here
are the requirements and now dont call us until youre
done. We worked alongside both of them very closely and
interactively to make sure they understood our requirements and our
peaks are different. Basically we wanted bandwidth on demand.
Thats cheap commodity stuff now too, so weve got as
much as we want.

We spent a lot of time trying to educate them on the profiles of
the business and constantly challenged them on the engineering
design that they kept coming up with, so that we were comfortable
and really believed that they could do what they said. Anyway, we
got a very high level of confidence during that process that they
understood what our needs were, and therefore what they were
proposing would address those needs. You have to have some sort of
faith in them that they are technically capable, so the most
important thing is making sure that they understand what your needs
are.

Initial concerns
Liz Gosling: My primary concern was the service to the users and
reliability type aspects. It was this kind of [putting] all
your eggs in your one basket syndrome I think [that]
naturally makes people quite nervous. So weve had to look at
what we need to do in the way of making sure weve got a
nicely reliable network.

Steve Mayo-Smith: One of the key things is redundancy with the
PABXs which we dont have, and secondly, cost reduction. As we
renovate the two campuses, its got to be absolutely reliable
and it comes back to mobile computing. Weve gone from a very
paper-based environment where people could carry their paper
around. Weve now computerised them unfortunately weve
always tied them to the wall with cable, which is why weve
got God knows how many thousands of PCs now.

So what we need to be able to do is to be able to get back to
free up both the clinicians in terms of the information they carry
and the communications they have. Thats where it comes into
the voice over IP versus mobility and the combination of the
two.

Mitigating risks Catherine Rusby: Tell me, what it is that we do
that doesnt introduce risk? What is it that we do to be
successful in our role? We understand the risks and we put actions
in place to mitigate those risks. That is why I can categorically
say that our implementation was virtually flawless.

We had so many people telling us we were going to fail, do not
underestimate how important it is [that] if we lose the call
centres, our business was in jeopardy. That was foremost in our
minds. All of the implementation strategy was based around,
lets understand all the risks, and get the risk mitigations,
even to the point where you know our testing included a full
implementation of a call centre and a rollback to demonstrate that
we could, because we had to have Telecom sitting at the table. I
have to say they played very well despite being very sore to lose
the account.

They did play well in this situation, because we had to have
them involved to say, Okay scenario: We roll over and it all
goes to custard. How quickly can we roll back? We had to
demonstrate that we could [roll back] in an appropriate amount of
time, and we did. We had to do that a couple of times just to make
sure that we had it all sussed, but that is about mitigating the
risk. The risk is there. Understand it, put actions in place and
get the right people helping you. That was a big deal for us -
getting the right people helping us.

Change management is a very big part of it, and we had an
excellent woman leading this. She would have the right amount of
people around on site, and people are an issue. Thats just
the way humans are, they dont like change, but they really
appreciate and warm to immediate attention.

So we didnt bring our help desk on call until a week after
we went live. We had people on-site, every day, all day, doing the
stroking, dealing with it, [saying]Its okay, this is
what you need to do. They bought into it right away because
the benefits are immediately evident.

Pointers for success Catherine Rusby: I would put 85 per cent or
90 per cent of our success was due to having had really good
expertise and advice on how to go forward, all the way through.
Ive got great people working for me and theyve learned
heaps, and loving it.

My biggest advice is make sure youve got the right
knowledge and the right information, because in all of your
arguments, whether political or management and staff, if
youve got credible, exact information, experience-based, it
will win the day every time.